Just because PayPal decides to tell you that they have the right to murder your baby and eat your dog, doesn't mean they can do it without consequence. PayPal does not have the authority to dismiss federal legislation.In Canada, at least, we still actually have some semblance of a real justice system that is not for sale to the highest bidder. Robo-calling and spamming are quite explicitly opt-in only in Canada, and they MUST provide a means to opt-out.

Something similar was done by Miami drug smugglers in the 80's. They used to spray entire warehouses with marijuana residue so the dogs would trigger on every single box. Eventually, the cops just gave up using the dogs. Well, that, and the drug smugglers eventually just bought off the cops.

zentigger writes: Canadians rejoice! It looks like the new anti-spam regulations might actually have some teeth! Today, the CRTC issued a $1.1 million fine to Compu-Finder for violating Canada’s anti-spam legislation by sending commercial emails without consent, as well as messages in which the unsubscribe mechanisms did not function properly. Furthermore, an analysis of the complaints made to the Spam Reporting Centre of this industry sector shows that Compu-Finder accounts for 26% of all complaints submitted.

There is nothing in there stating that the carriers must unlock the device free of charge. We got burned by the same sad lack of foresight in Canada: The carrier must unlock your device, and they will actually do it right on the phone with you in most cases, but not until you have paid the $75 fee!

They might have looked a bit alike on the surface, but Apple really did turn the industry inside out. All of the existing mobile vendors were struggling to implement their own proprietary protocols and develop their own in house apps, but they still considered it to be a phone with features. Kudos to Blackberry--they did some amazing stuff with the limitations they had at the time they first came to market, but they weren't paying attention to the where things were going.

Apple saw the future: just make everything use standard well developed and well understood protocols, with the new data standards at the time there was no longer a requirement to try and make every bit count in the data streams. It really extended the internet into the mobile market space, while blackberry was still trying to play gatekeeper and only give little submarine porthole views.

They also released developer tools so anyone could produce apps for their platform, and they made sure they had a product with enough horsepower to actually do useful stuff--really it was just an extension of the iPod. At the time Blackberry was still just flogging messenger.

Apple turned the problem-space upside down. They created a pocket computer that happened to be able to make phone calls. That is about as similar to a phone that can read email as a Barbie Power-Wheels is to a Land Rover.

The fix to this is to implement a really high tax rate (say 90%) on licensing fees paid to foreign companies. Suddenly it becomes less expensive for apple/google/etc. to try and funnel money out of the country and they pay US corporate taxes on money earned in the US. (also a 90% inheritance tax on inheritance over, say, $10M, would go a long way to fixing the dangerous imbalance of wealth, but that's another story...)

You may be right. Apple did not create the smartphone segment. What Apple did was create a whole new market segment: Pocket computers, that could make phone calls. (well, technically, mp3 players that could make phone calls...).

This is such a load of complete narrow-minded thinking by small-minded people who can't see beyond their own greed.

Really!

As long as politicians are for sale this problem will not be solved. There is simply too much profit to be made by selling guns and bombs that there is no REAL motive to solve the terrorist problem. (See what I did there? This isn't a problem of Islamists, Christians or Moonies for that matter!)

The terrorists are fighting because they have NOTHING TO LOSE.

Take a fraction of the BILLIONS of dollars that are being literally thrown away on bombs and bullets, and invest in infrastructure: roads, hospitals, communications ; justice: the real sort, not the typical highest bidder type of justice we are all becoming used to; and education. Yes, you will still have nut-jobs. They are everywhere, but if the majority of the people feel secure, and productive, they will be happy, and WAY less likely to pick up a gun and start shooting infidels.

Hollywood has spewed forth a bunch of pre-digested vomitus, and re-re-recycled stories at a time when the cost of a trip to the cinema has reached epic proportions. Meanwhile Netflix, HBO and others are producing high quality ORIGINAL works with intriguing stories that we can consume at our own convenience, without waiting in lineups, and putting up with a bunch of drunk teenagers running back and forth chatting and texting. Top this off with the proliferation of Apple TVs and set-top boxes that have shifted on-line viewing to the living-room screen. Sprinkle with a dash of unemployment and a growing social trend towards cocooning, and this really should come as no surprise.